Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.0
Audio		3.5
Extras		1.0
Overall		4.0

Force of Evil Blu-ray Movie Review

Perusing the dark side.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman July 17, 2012

The House Un-American Activities Committee left a swath of ruined careers in its wake, but it also created a tangential reverberation centered around questions of what might have been. How many fantastic actors, writers and directors might have had significantly different career arcs, at least in the fifties, had the HUAC not engaged in its now notorious efforts to encourage the studios and their ruling elite to have various people blacklisted within the industry so that they either couldn’t work at all or were forced to do so under pseudonyms. (I should state in the interests of full disclosure that my perhaps overly negative attitude toward the HUAC may stem at least in part from the fact that my own family was affected by it. While my own father was a true blue American patriot and U.S. Army General, both of his brothers were rather well known leftists and one of them was hauled before the HUAC and the Dies Committee, and Martin Dies himself attempted—spectacularly unsuccessfully—to corner my late Uncle and keep him from making a living, calling him "the baby faced Pinko of New York City's docks". The irony here is that my Uncle, despite having been at the least a “fellow traveler” in the American Communist Party in the 1930s and 1940s, ended up being a multimillionaire who owned a great deal of property in lower Manhattan and several other boroughs at the time of his death.) One of the more notable careers sidelined by the HUAC was that of Abraham Polonsky, a man who made no bones about his Marxist leanings but who, like so many Communists back in the day, had signed up to fight what was then considered the real menace—Fascism—in World War II. After the War, Polonsky quickly made a name for himself as a writer in Hollywood, earning an Oscar nomination for his screenplay for Body and Soul. Polonsky followed up Body and Soul by both writing and directing Force of Evil, though the second film failed to receive either much critical appreciation or box office appeal. And shortly thereafter Polonsky found himself deemed “dangerous” by the “powers that were”, exiled into a forced hiatus where to this day his pseudonymous contributions are still largely unknown. Polonsky managed to start getting work under his own name again in television in the mid- sixties, and did finally direct another film in 1969, the Robert Redford starrer Tell Them Willie Boy is Here. Polonsky also evidently continued to make largely uncredited contributions to a number of films, including rather incredibly Mommie Dearest, but his output is sadly small, a lasting legacy to the devastating effects of the Red Scare.

In his interesting if too brief introduction included on this Blu-ray as a supplement, Martin Scorsese mentions On the Waterfront in passing as one of many films that obviously bore the imprint of Force of Evil, but the similarities are in fact more than skin deep, and it’s fascinating to peer beneath the surface at their two filmmakers, Polonsky and Elia Kazan, and how they handled their interactions with the HUAC so differently. Polonsky was perhaps a more screed-like writer than On the Waterfront’s Budd Schulberg, and if in Body and Soul Polonsky posited a man torn between wrong and right within a Capitalist system that was seen as inherently corrupt, in Force of Evil, Polonsky goes for broke as it were, giving us a lead character who has already given in to the seedier side of Capitalism, even if his intentions are at least partly noble. But much like On the Waterfront, Force of Evil also examines the sibling relationship between two brothers within the context of a seedy world of moral turpitude and shades of gray.

John Garfield portrays Joe Morse, an attorney working for a gangster named Tucker (Roy Roberts), a “shyster” (as Tucker’s thug buddies call him) who is helping Tucker achieve a level of legitimacy with his numbers operation. It’s indicative of Polonsky’s cynicism that a major plot point of Force of Evil deals with Tucker attempting to put a coterie of smaller number operations out of business by rigging a July 4 lottery so that the number 776, a popular choice for that day, “hits”, thereby bankrupting all the small time bookies. Polonsky is obviously taking one of the most iconic celebrations of American identity and sullying it with this kind of behavior. For Joe’s character, the situation becomes personal as one of the small time racketeers turns out to be his brother Leo (Thomas Gomez, looking rather like a young Zero Mostel), and the central conflict of Force of Evil is whether Joe will do Tucker’s bidding while simultaneously attempting to save his brother from destitution.

Along the way Joe gets involved romantically with Doris (Beatrice Pearson, in one of only two feature films she made), his brother’s secretary. The love angle is actually one of the weaker elements of the film, one obviously there to provide a kind of mainstream interest in what is otherwise a rather unseemly exposé of the darkness in men’s souls. Critics evidently didn’t know quite what to make of Force of Evil’s flowery language and its arty camera work at the time of the film’s release, but rather oddly they seemed to react more positively at the time to the film’s love story, the most glaring element that seems out of place to modern day sensibilities.

Force of Evil is a brisk (not even an hour and a half), visceral journey, and if Polonsky ultimately lets Joe redeem himself in the film’s closing moments, the overall feeling generated by the film is one of moral degradation and people forced to compromise. It’s almost humorous when Leo insists he’s an “honest businessman” as he defends himself against Tucker’s attempts to take over his little corner of the numbers racket, but the fascinating thing is, in Polonsky’s formulation where all things are relative, Leo is probably right.

Force of Evil Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Force of Evil is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Olive Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.35:1. This is yet another incredibly strong looking black and white catalog release, one which offers excellent contrast, luscious blacks, brilliant whites and very nicely modulated gray scale. The elements utilized here are in mostly excellent shape, though there was one extremely odd anomaly at approximately 1:08:28 (when Garfield and Pearson are looking at a newspaper in a club) that I'm at a loss to fully explain, though my hunch is it's a digital problem and not one endemic to the elements themselves. The image warps and has horizontal scratch-like lines appearing for just a moment (probably less than a second), which leads me to believe it may be a mastering or authoring issue (the disc itself did not appear to have any scratches or other blemishes, and I'll be eager to hear if others experience this problem). Otherwise, though, this is a beautifully filmic presentation, with natural grain and a nicely clear and sharp image.

Force of Evil Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Force of Evil's lossless DTS-HD Master Audio Mono mix serves the film reasonably well, especially since the film is a fairly small scale affair built out of dialogue scenes typically only involving two or three characters at a time. The soundtrack has some issues in the midrange, which are somewhat more noticeable during David Raksin's typically lush music cues than in the dialogue segments, but overall this track sounds very good, with generally excellent fidelity given appropriate expectations that take the age of the film and recording techniques of the day into account. Garfield's frequent voiceover narration sounds remarkably good throughout the film.

Force of Evil Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Martin Scorsese Introduction (SD; 3:33). Scorsese talks about what an underappreciated masterpiece Force of Evil is, and how it deeply influenced Raging Bull, Mean Streets and Goodfellas. He also talks about the lost opportunity the film world suffered once the HUAC sidelined Abraham Polonsky.

Force of Evil Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Any film which has held sway over Martin Scorsese as solidly as Force of Evil obviously has is certainly more than just a B-grade noir or thriller, as was generally thought at the time of the film's release. This is an oddly poetic exercise, one in love with language even as it details the moral degradation of its characters. The back story here, especially with regard to Polonsky, gives the film added poignancy. Garfield and Gomez are top notch, and the supporting cast is excellent as well. This Blu-ray offers great video and very good audio. Highly recommended.